road verges on rural roads - NERC Open Research Archive ...

I Table 2. Acreages of mown <strong>verges</strong> by Class of <strong>road</strong>.
Recent date
Somerset and Glamorgan.
Acreage mown Av. acreage
Class of <strong>road</strong> Av. width of (both sides mown per
and mileage mown verge
of <strong>road</strong>) mile of <strong>road</strong>
I Somerset T 117 61311 175 1.56
1 407 4' 4" 442 1.1
11 294 4'1" 300 1.0
111 1569 3 ' 7" 1411 0-9
Unclassified 1873 3'3" 1521 0.8
Total 4260 3849
Glamorgan T 61 3 ' 3" 54 0.8
I 260 1 ' 2" 87 0.3
I1 & 111 422 2'91~ 308 0-7
Unclassified 630 2 ' 0" 3 13 0- 5
Total 1373 762
Unfortunately both Glamorgan and Somerset are counties with narrow <strong>verges</strong> MI
represent only one end of the topographical range (Table 1). The very narrow
<strong>verges</strong> on Class I <strong>road</strong>s in Glamorgan may stem from the fact that many of these
<strong>road</strong>s are in industrial or built up areas, or run in valleys. No figures from
other counties giving detail of this sort were available, nor considered as being
of more than academic interest by highway departments; although with increasing
application of work study to highway maintenance operations (see Chapter 3) they
may become of greater concern in the future.
Taking again the figure of 1.65 acres of managed <strong>road</strong>side per mile of <strong>road</strong>,
and the 1968 MOT statistic of 140,116 miles of county <strong>road</strong>s, the acreage of grass
cut on <strong>road</strong>sides in England and Wales works out to 231,191 acres. Indications are
that about 75% of the approximately 12,000 acres of Motorway banks and <strong>verges</strong> are
cut, giving a further 9,000 acres and an overall total of managed land of
approximately 240,000 acres. This figure compares with the figure of 300,000
acres given by Chadwick (1969) as an estimate of the acreage of <strong>road</strong>side <strong>verges</strong>
under the control of highway authorities in the English counties.
OCCURRENCE OF ROADS
In Table 1 the counties have been grouped in a number of obvious geographical
relationships and it is interesting to note that the average acreage/mile of mown
<strong>verges</strong> tends to fit into the same pattern. It would be wrong to try to draw too
many conclusions from the data and no doubt excellent reasons could be adduced to